Electronic components come in many different sizes. A common way of delivering the components is on tape using a reel adapted to a certain type of tape, e.g. the width or size of the tapes. The tapes which carry the components come in different predefined widths, e.g. 8, 12, 16, 24, 23, 44 mm et cetera. Because the different types of reels stored in a storage unite have different widths, they also have different heights when stored horizontally in the storage unit.
Surface Mount Technology is now the preferred method of automated production of electronic printed circuit boards. So-called pick-and-place robotic machines are used in the process of placing and soldering electronic components to a printed circuit board (PCB). A plurality of pneumatic nozzles on small robot arms in the pick-and-place machine use suction to pick up a required component, such as a capacitor or a complete integrated circuit, and place them on a board, after jet spraying a pattern of adhesive on the board.
Machines for pick-and-lace mounting of components on a substrate, such as Printed Circuit Board (PCB), or a substrate for a System in Package (SiP) component are subject to different, often contradictory demands, such as mounting speed, mounting precision, size, price, etc. The expression “pick and place” is understood by the person skilled in the art as describing the very mounting operation where a mounting head is moved to a component feeder area, where the mounting head picks one or more components from one or more of the component feeders, and then is moved to a mounting area where the mounting head places the component or components on the substrate.
Such machines are capable of picking and placing upwards of 30000 components per hour on boards. Supplies of a certain type of component, such as a certain specified type of capacitor, resistor, diode or IC, are often delivered on trays of one type of component or on sticks or, as has become most common today, on tapes in reels with a series of pockets of appropriate depth in the tape, holding one component in each pocket. The reels have varying widths between 8 mm and 44 mm. A row of reels, each representing a different type of component, are placed in a magazine and feed components into the machine as the nozzle arms rapidly pick components out of their pockets and place them on the board. Component manufacturers deliver the components in standard reels of pocket-tape with a thin cover tape closing the pockets. This pocket cover tape must be removed by some method before the component can be picked out of its pocket.
Tape guides or feeders are used to feed the tape into the pick-and-place machine as the components are picked out of the pockets. One such tape guide is described in EP 1 381 265 B1. This type of component tape guide has no built-in tape advancing mechanism. Rather, the tape guide is mounted for use in the pick-and-place machine so that a feeding wheel in the pick-and-place machine protrudes through the tape guide into contact with the pre-threaded tape.
Each tape guide has a specific identity in relation to the pick-and-place machine and in whatever sequential position the reel with its pre-threaded tape guide is placed in the machine, the mounting machine robotics will properly find and pick up the proper components from the tape pockets. A method of associating the identity of the tape guide used to the specifics of the components in the tape threaded into the guide is described in EP 1 147 697 B1.
As known, the electronic components and in particular, SMD components, intended to be mounted on electronic boards in order to carry out precise functions, are wound in tapes or reels which are placed in stores or cabinets suitable for storage.
The single reels of SMD components, stored in said stores, are identified by a special code, for example of the bar type, which contains all the information relating to the type of electronic components contained in the single reels and the information relating to the location of the same reels in the store.
The reels of SMD components are managed in such stores according to manual, semi-automatic or automatic logics. In the case of a manual store, when the operator needs electronic components suitable for making an electronic board, he/she looks for the reel(S) into the store by the identification code and manually carries out the pick up and the subsequent replacement of the reels into the store in the positions marked by the code.
In the case of a semi-automatic or automatic store, the operator selects the reels he/she needs by the code and the system presents them one by one to the same operator. The pick up and the replacement of the single reels, in the case of a fully automatic store, can take place for example by a mechanical actuator that pick up/replaces the reel from its containment cell or seat.